


The Unknown Stage

by BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 22:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1581185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse/pseuds/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Stage One: The Silence.</i>
</p><p>  <i>The crash resonates around him, bouncing in from his open door. A sick sort of silence follows it, no movement after. He waits to hear the sound of his mother’s frantic cleaning or his father’s frustrated breaths, but nothing comes.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unknown Stage

**Author's Note:**

> {(To my darling Papa, who wanted to read something I wrote. Well, this is something.)}
> 
> What is this? Me trying to get back my writing grove, that's what. Enjoy the beast thing that skins people??? IDK, my friend called it a sadistic zombie, so there you go.

The news anchor's voice continued to crack, "A lethal virus has been released into George Town. At the moment we know of four stages. The final outcome looks..."

There was a minute pause, the news anchor’s face frozen in a quiet despair. “The final outcome looks bleak.”

Stephan turned off his TV, his back ridged. Silence fell over the Turner household, his mother’s eyes wide in terror and his father’s knuckles white as snow.

“We need to get out of here,” his father said gruffly. He limped out of his lazy boy chair, his footsteps creaking as he walked around the front room. “We can’t stay here.”

“Where do we go?” his mother asked, her voice a watery mess.

“The town hall will surely have a blockade being set up. We’ll go there,” his father replied sternly, unable to meet his wife’s eyes. “Pack only the necessities.”

Stephan said nothing as he trudged down the hall, the shadows no longer a dancing presence, but one of a coming doom. He looks around his room, just as he left it. His clothes are piling up in a corner, dirty from who-knows-what. His Playstation is sitting innocently by his TV, plugged in and waiting to be played. He packs his belongings, clothes, and a book here or there, determined to travel light. There’s a crashing sound out in the hallway, a loud heart breaking sound that sets Stephan up for the rest of his miserable life.

Stage One: _The Silence._

The crash resonates around him, bouncing in from his open door. A sick sort of silence follows it, no movement after. He waits to hear the sound of his mother’s frantic cleaning or his father’s frustrated breaths, but nothing comes.

Stephan swallows and mourns what he knows will happen once he steps out of the false safety of his childhood room. His breathing turns harsh as he simpers, throwing his backpack over his shoulder and turning to the suddenly menacing hallway. He looks around his room one last time, this piece of his childhood choking him as he takes heavy steps toward the door. He pauses in the entryway, straining his ears as he tries to listen for something, anything, but no sound assaults his ears. Stephan purses his lips and narrows his eyes, steeling himself as he cautiously takes a few steps out of his room.

Blood; sticky and red, it paints across the once pristine white walls, mocking him with its obsolete patterns and obscene streaks. There’s a mass lying in the doorway to the bathroom; a lump of dismembered flesh that resembles a giant skinned raccoon. Stephan loses his lunch right next to it.

He’s sobbing, his gags tortured and muffled as his tears streak down to mingle with the bile. The smell is rancid; all of the sour smells suddenly hitting him at once. He dry heaves once, twice, before he has to straighten himself up, his hands pale and shaking as he avoids looking for the other mass he knows is lying somewhere around the house. He doesn’t look behind him, terrified of what might be there, as he calmly walks his way down the hallway.

His living room is untouched except for the broken window beside the TV. Glass glitters around the TV, sunlight reflecting off of it to create light spots on the top of his ceiling. He watches their dance for a moment, feeling the breeze reach him from the window, before he turns away, heading for the kitchen.

There’s not much to look at, food long gone, only empty bowls and dirty spoons. Stephan immediately goes to the sink, crouching down to search below it. He bats away a few chemicals, window cleaner and bleach mostly, before he sighs in relief, his hands grasped around the object he was looking for. He pulls it out, careful not to cut himself, and examines it with a feeling of hope rising in him. It’s not much, considering what he’s facing, but the hatchet would be his lifeline, his only defense until he reached the town center. He doesn’t bother closing the door as he leaves.

He’s alone as he quickly makes his way down the street, the unnatural silence in his house reaching far and beyond. The misty morning brings a sense of foreboding, his spine aching as he shivers. Stephan holds his breath in intervals, not trusting his own ability to breathe quietly. He sees nothing as he makes his way through town, up South Street and on to Main Street. He curls his toes in his shoes as he walks, the morning dew wetting his shoes and seeping through to his socks below. Stephan knows he has to be vigilant, watch every shadow that moves, every creature that could be lurking, but he finds himself relaxing at the easy pace of his walk, his shoulder loosening and his grip on the hatchet less painful to his clenched hands.

Stephan rounds the corner, getting a full look at the town meeting hall. The building is large, the largest in his small town, and it’s made of a solid brick that looks clean and new. The cement steps that lead up to the entrance, however, are cracked and dirty from wear. As Stephan gets closer to the meeting hall, closer to salvation, he starts to wrinkle his nose. Soon, the smell overwhelms him, depression and hopelessness falling over him as he sees the steps up close.

Dead. All of them dead. Blood seeps from their exposed muscles, no skin anywhere on their bodies. Stephan mourns them, watches in horror as their blood seeps through the rough cracks in the cement. He wishes he could know who he mourns, who lays before him in such a state, but he knows not, any feature he once knew them by gone, torn from their bodies by the monsters Stephan is trying to escape from. He wonders if he should burry the bodies, burry the evidence of this tragedy, but then the sky darkens, an early morning storm hanging over his head.

Stephan hears it before he sees it, a growl that chills him to the bone; a sick, insane snarl that would haunt him in his nightmares for years to come. He swallows, not much else he can do, and turns to face the creature.

Stage Two: _Panic._

Stephan would like to say that he had faced the creature with courage and resolution, but he hadn’t. He faced it on the verge of crying and wetting himself.

The creature’s face is distorted. A mix of people Stephan has never met and has known his whole life. Bloody drool drips from its mouth, slowly dripping from its hairy chin to the ground below. It’s almost like a werewolf, Stephan thinks in terror, except for the fact it has tried to pull human flesh over its face. Stephan doesn’t have time to think about the creature’s giant taloned feet or its menacing, piercing eyes, for the creature makes a screech; a screech that sounds of a human dying, a human wishing for its pain to end, a human tortured in Hell itself. Stephan takes that as a warning and he’s off, hatchet swinging in his arms as he runs from the ferocious beast.

Stephan wishes this would end. This nightmare, that is. He’s running down Main Street and up North Street, houses blurring as he runs from his inevitable end. He hesitates, for only a moment, and the creature’s nauseating breath is on the back of his neck, its dirty hands dig into his arms with cracked claws.

_Stage 3: Pain._

Stephan feels every minute of it. Every second as the creature slowly rips the skin from his muscles. Stephan screams and begs and cries, but nothing reaches the animalistic brain of the creature above him. It pulls and tugs with its dirty clawed hands, intent to have all the flesh that decorates Stephan’s bones.

Stephan’s screaming becomes feral; a wild cry for help and pain that no one will answer. The creature lets out some type of chuckle, a sound that hits Stephan somewhere deep in his gut. The sound, it’s human, a rough male chuckle that makes Stephan’s pained cries turn into desperate sobs.

He wants out.

Stephan screams as the creature starts peeling the skin from his arms.

He needs out.

Stephan groans as the creature starts peeling the skin from his legs.

He’s going to die.

Stephan’s sobs trickle off as the creature finally reaches the skin on his feet. Stephan feels nothing, a deep brutal pain stabbing at him with every blood filled breath. The blood, he realizes, is everywhere. He hadn’t noticed it at first, his mind on the pain, but it’s everywhere, seeping from his muscles as the creature grins. Stephan wonders what part of him the creature will use, what part is worthy of such a terrifying beast. He wonders what part of his skin will be thrown back at his mangled body. Stephan realizes that he’s almost gone, a feeling of desperate hope clawing at him, hope that he’s going to die and this will all end.

Stage 4: _Death._

Stephan dies wishing for death.

Stage 5: _The Abyss_ ** _._**

He comes back wishing to give it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Society](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12257469) by [BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse/pseuds/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse)




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